Single core overload problem

There are good Reaper Themes that resemble Logic, gratis. I got the one that he wants donations on, but it's more complete than I want to wrap my residual brain around. It uses an SWS library that vastly extends what you can make Reaper do, and I'm not following it all yet. When my medulla oblongata isn't just a piñata, I'll come back and reclaim the rest of my brain. And we'll see. Possibly. Tonight I'm trying to determine if it's true that you can't pass a 4K 60 Hz video signal over ordinary lamp cord. And I can't find my phone.

There are downloadable Themes, which you only need to drop onto the open Reaper app. Then they become always available in the Options -> Themes list. Those have a .ReaperThemeZip extension. There are also specific layouts and all kinds of bells and whistles. Just the .ReaperThemeZip ones are making me happy for now. It's enough to make Reaper do basic stuff and look cool.

As to which CCs get transmitted, not sure this is related to your case, but I just ran into something similar in The Environment. The volume fader movements I thought were CC 7 were being passed as special "Fader" messages. But at some level faders WERE responding to CC7 messages. I wanted CC7 at some point internally so I used a transform to convert them to CC7. There are all sorts of situations where Logic doesn't do the obvious, or where our expectations don't match theirs. I would suggest you set up "wires" to new monitor windows you create in The Environment to tap the MIDI streams and get a better insight. I haven't begun to tackle how NetworkMidi can be visualized in The Environment, but I hope you'll tell us what you find.

That is one issue for sure, which I haven't been able to resolve as yet. I'm more focused on trying to find a way to manage the multiple ports that doesn't involve manual connecting of each one every time I want to work. That would be a deal-breaker I'm afraid and would send me high-tailing over to VEPro if it proves to be the only way. I'm just about to explore CopperLan to see if that might work..

Ah yes... the Environment... love that side of Logic ahem. Will maybe fish around in there once I get my ports sorted out and see if I can't get all the CC's etc. to transfer across. Again, this would be a bit of a deal-breaker if my only option is to keep moving back and forth between the two DAW's to achieve simple tasks. I need to continue to be able to do everything within Logic and simply host my libraries in Reaper for this setup to be truly viable.

Hope you managed to find your phone and that you didn't blow anything up trying out that lamp cable!

Now, back to the fun..

Edit: Yes! CopperLan does the job. 32 ports and it's free. Seems to be working fine so far. So now I'm going to attempt to get all my track parameters like faders and mute etc. to work across the Network.

Just an observation for sanity preservation. Both Logic and Reaper load up a project OR a template with all the settings preserved. That means Environment settings as well. If I set up transforms and specific ports/channels, it all loads up together. I can't imagine you having to manually set ports or Environment setups each time. That's even been true with Rewire. If I load Logic first, then Reaper, everything connects as I left it.

I haven't tried CooperLan, I'll take a look, thanks!

With your keyboard playing a VI within a track, go to the Environment Mixer page, pull a wire from this track to a Monitor Window, then the Monitor to another track with a different VI. When you play you will see the second VI is playing too, and lovely events in the Monitor. This BTW is a simple way to send MIDI to multiple tracks, instead of using special menu items. But the important thing is that the Monitor Window can show you how Fader motion, Mutes and all manner of internal messages are represented. For instance it seems that automated fader moves show up as special Fader messages, manual moves as CC7 !? I haven't sorted it all out, maybe you will, or you'll agree with David, that there's nothing paradoxical going on at all. In any event, this won't burn up too many neurons and you might stumble on some useful know-how.

Oh, regarding the phone, I keep an iPhone to help find the Android and vice versa. The lamp cord experiment was positive. Yes, you do need more expensive wiring to connect a 4K monitor at 60Hz to anything but the wall.

Yes I am aware that Logic and I presume all DAW's including Reaper save all the settings internally. I was talking about having to set up the ports in AMS and rtpMIDI after every new boot. CopperLan seems somewhat better in this regard in that you can take a snapshot of a current configuration which can then be restored in a new session. However I am finding that for some reason Logic doesn't 'see' the midi ports that have been previously assigned when I re-load a project. I have to re-assign them in the External Instrument plugins on each track. Not the end of the world but I'd prefer for everything just to load up ready to go.

I've set up that monitor as you described, thanks for that. I also set up ReaControlMidi in Reaper which shows me what midi messages are coming in to a track. Both are recording mod wheel and expression data but only the Logic monitor is registering volume, as CC 7, mute as (CC?) 9 and solo as (CC?) 3. The latter two also have an 'F' in the first column whereas the three others have the little 'flying saucer' icon. Beats me why CC 7, mute and solo are not being transmitted outside of Logic but for some reason that is the case. Nothing is showing up in Reaper for those.

Perhaps there is a way to persuade Logic to transmit the correct messages for those functions but I can probably live without them. I will however look a bit more into whether there is any way to do that in the Dreaded Environment. As it stands I can mute and solo any recorded tracks by using the keyboard shortcuts and I don't really need to use CC 7 until I'm mixing because I always use audio for that so it'll be within Logic at that stage. I will just have to mute and solo instruments or adjust midi volume within Reaper while working with the actual VI's. Sure if I install one of those yummy Logic themes I can always pretend that I'm in the Logic mixer on a 2nd screen..

Yeah, I think this is still amounting to a viable system. I'm very impressed with the smoothness of how it works between the two DAW's in terms of switching tracks, sound quality coming back into Logic and lack of audible latency. Sounds crystal clear and instant to my ears. I can change instruments and articulations seamlessly. All good for the workflow. Time will tell how stable CopperLan will be under pressure and hopefully I will smooth out the kinks as I get more familiar with it all.

I dunno what AMS is. In rtpMIDI the assignments have stayed the way

I left them, including which ones were open, and you can set an

option so it doesn't complain about no partner at the other end.

And Network MIDI and rtpMIDI are background services,

so even if the GUI is not open, they run with those settings.

You shouldn't have to manually redefine ports unless something

goes wrong.

If I shut down the mac and the PC with the ports defined everything

comes up and connects when I reboot. The only gotcha is that the mac

can lock up and not agree to shut down sometimes if there are open ports,

and that's a bitch because I've had to forcibly power down the cMP.

So the safer way is to just un-enable the ports before shutdown and just tick

them back on after rebooting. But nothing needs redefining.

==============

I'm not sure how to visualize Network MIDI or Rewire channels

in the environment, but it should be discoverable.

The messages with the F header are those "fader" messages.

They can be Transformed (using a Transformer Object) into whatever, like say CC7.

It makers sense that Fader messages be distinct from CC7, it used

to be a problem for Multis that the Fader and CC7 were the same.

But if it's going to an external MIDI instrument, I imagine it would

be going out of Logic as CC7? I don't know as I've not used external

MIDI synths in a while. One way to approach this would be to work

with a real bona fide MIDI synth and watch how it's done.

There are also IAC channels to experiment with. I stumbled onto

using IAC as an intermediary to send to Network MIDI ports, and

that was more visible.

A remaining trick is how to visualize the Network MIDI ports

(and Rewire ports) in The Environment. I still don't understand where

the data that goes to the Sequencer Input goes next and how it can

be visualized. I would expect Sequencer Input not to dead end the

way it does. It's as if they built the Environment to a point and then

built the main window's tracks as a separate metaphor, and sort of

left the Environment in a semi-finished state, with incomplete "wiring"

and Audio even showing up in the mixer objects in what used to be

a MIDI only "schematic".

David says Sequencer Input just "routes data to any Record-enabled

tracks". Maybe David can help us, he says it's clear to him.

=====

Does CooperLAN substitute for rtpMIDI on the PC?

For NetworkMIDI on the mac? How do you use it?

Do you pass audio over CopperLan, or are you passing audio

from the PC (Roland) Interface to your mac's audio interface

using SPDIF over wire?

So what does CopperLAN add that Network MIDI was not doing?

Ok. AMS is Audio Midi Setup. I found that my settings in both that and rtpMIDI were not saving - I had to manually re-connect everything on re-boot, although all the ports I had created were still there. Sounds like I am missing something though; also I can't find that option you mention, in the advanced tab or anywhere else.

CopperLan installs on both platforms and can be a substitute for both. Very easy to set up once you adjust to the interface. No, as far as I can see it's no better than the AMS/rtp setup except it's already configured with up to 32 ports available. I adopted it because of the issue around connecting, which may well be a non-issue! It might be an idea to try it though if it means you don't have to un-enable those ports.. I'm still passing the audio back into Logic as a single stream via my interface - I think there are some issues with audio over C'Lan as far as I can gather. I don't think they are still developing it but there are some videos and a forum, all available on their website and YouTube. Have to adapt to the Belgian-English but it's all clear enough if a little quirky.

The fader movement does show up as CC 7 in the Environment monitor, set up as you described. The faders also move up and down when I draw CC 7 curves in Midi Draw so I don't understand why it doesn't transmit as such outside of Logic, especially when CC 1 and CC 11 do. The only difference according to the monitor is the number (1, 7 or 11). Yes, it's a pity there's no following the data beyond the Sequencer Input. I agree that is an unhelpful dead-end, especially in this sort of scenario. No need for an external hardware synth to test I think - ReaControlMidi is confirming that CC 7 is not being received by the PC so presumably it is simply not being transmitted for whatever reason.

Doesn't make an awful lot of sense for 'mute' and 'solo' to be designated as 'fader' operations - they are just on-off buttons after all..

Yes, it would be good to hear from David on all of this but no doubt he has other fish to fry.

Edit: Been trying to sort out the connection issue. On the one hand, Logic forgetting which CopperLan ports have previously been assigned in an External Instrument once the computer is re-booted is a documented issue, on both this and the C'Lan forums. Probably something to do with the particular protocol they use not being recognised automatically by Logic. I have posted over there to see if anyone has found a solution but it's not very active these days. Meanwhile I'm stuck with having to manually re-assign ports in the Ext. Inst. every time I want to work. Bummer.

On the other hand, any midi port connections I establish in Audio Midi Setup and rtpMIDI are still dropped once I re-boot either machine. I consistently have to re-establish the connections manually. I can't see any option or setting in either AMS or rtpMIDI to make sure the port configuration is saved. The only likely options within the latter are under Advanced and they are in Virtual Ports and Protocol Options but nothing of what's available there makes sense. Under P. Options there's only a checkbox named "Remove peer on remote disconnect" which I've left un-checked? I know the ports are supposed to re-connect automatically on re-boot but that's not what's happening here. Bummer.

Of these two undesirable scenarios I prefer the first one as it's quicker to re-establish ports in Logic than to re-make the connections in AMS/rtpMIDI. Neither is ideal though, so if there are any suggestions on how to get either system to maintain the port connections on re-booting, that would be great. I'm going to send Tobias E. an email to see if he has any idea why this is happening as he states that rtpMIDI "will try to re-establish the connection every time you boot up your computer, so you don't have to connect every time you want to use this connection".

A tip for people running slave machines. It's a nuisance to be surrounded with monitors just to talk to your little slave(s). And using Picture In Picture features on your main screen creates a rigid division of the real estate. Running a Screen Sharing session instead lets you configure any number of the little darlings, in a smaller scalable window right on your Logic mac's desktop.

There are several free VNC servers that can be installed under Windows too. Such a PC can be configured to start up and log in blind, and running the VNC server, with no user interaction. Once it has booted, you can connect to it from the mac desktop from a shortcut. A single double-click and you have complete flexibility in how it displays.

@markdu have you loooked into linking Reaper on the mac with Reaper on the PC using their Reamote network app? If Reamote to Reamote requires less configuration, then having Logic talk to the remote slave Reaper session through the local Reaper session over Rewire might be worth looking into.

Good tip re. the screens thanks. Yeah having to navigate between two of everything is a bit of a PITA. I haven't put much thought into that side of things really - of course some sort of screen sharing makes the most sense, ideally if it's also possible to control the slave from the same keyboard and mouse as the master. Will look into this.

Certainly also worth looking into the Reamote way of doing things, though it does sound a bit convoluted using in effect 3 DAWs. The Logic-Reaper system I have set up seems to run very smoothly, apart from the need to reassign ports etc. which I can probably live with. (Still haven't heard back from CopperLan or Tobias E.) I haven't tested it under the pressure of a full template yet as I have gone back to working on the music project I was in the middle of before I got into all this. So a lot depends on how it all works under a full load. I will explore your suggestion though and thanks again for your help.

@Markdu

Best of luck with your big templates. You've been a brave guy, and you deserve for it to be great!

Yes, if you use a VNC session ("screen-sharing") on the mac to view the PC desktop, it of course uses the same keyboard and mouse. I've used VNC in a lot of various configurations, say for network management or software development, and using a gigabit connection it's very smooth. If it's all set up as part of a workflow it requires no fiddling at all, the only issue is you can truly get confused as to what is running in what. I remember one case where I had a VNC session running full screen and on THAT desktop I thoughtlessly opened a VNC session back to the machine I was at, whereupon I found the icon to open a VNC session on THAT desktop, and by then I was tangled and losing track

I haven't had time to try the Reamote approach yet, but from what I gather from the minimal docs on this topic, and if there's no snag with adding Rewire to the soup, and if you have the same versions of the plugin on the mac and the PC, then using the chain

(mac)Logic - Rewire - (mac)Reaper === (PC)Reamote - (PC) Reason

should be a LOT easier than what we've been doing with NetworkMIDI, because they seem to be saying there is no configuration to be done at the remote end. Like the master Reaper session hunts for waiting Reamote ports on the LAN automatically and handles the hosting of the plugin on the Reamote machine all by itself. Something like just pick the plugin at the master Reaper session as if it were local, pick the slave as a parameter in a dropdown, and that's it !? And it sends the audio back? They mention how many streams can be handled at different sample rates. That may be the rub, maybe latency with the audio?

I don't know if they mean that it has to be exactly the same version AND revision number of the plugin. But there are only a handful of plugins that are the serious single core killers, so I'm hoping it's possible to set up matching-enough versions of say Kontakt and Reaktor at both ends. Somewhere I read that the issue is having the same UI at both ends so you can use the UI solely on the master. Doesn't that sound sweet?

Whichever one of us gets there first, may be in heaven soon. Or just ... crawling back to square one.

@fernandraynaud thanks for your encouragement and your timely reply. Just yesterday I got round to making my first foray into screen-sharing and was just about to ask a question about that! Using the Microsoft Remote Desktop app I was able to control the PC fine from the Mac, open up Reaper etc. However I ran into a problem where I got an error message upon starting Reaper saying that none of the midi ports including both the C'Lan and the rtpMIDI ones could be opened. So they just didn't show up in the Reaper midi preferences or midi input options. Must be something to do with how that particular method uses the network protocol or whatever. As soon as I went back into the PC from its own interface, the ports were all available once more. Can you tell me what method/programme you use to run the screen-sharing side of things and whether that still allows for the full use of network midi? Meanwhile I'll do some research on this end including trying to get Remote Desktop to work properly. However maybe there's a better way?

I presume in your chain you mean (PC)Reamote - (PC)Reaper (not Reason)? What you describe certainly does sound like a viable option though, despite there being a few if's. Will definitely see what I can dig up in terms of info and give it a shot. In big projects with multiple tracks things might get a bit out of whack in terms of latency etc. but there's only one way to find out..

Yeah, maybe see you in network heaven once we can figure out a truly efficient system that passes all the tests! I still haven't installed that demo copy of VEPro as I've invested way too much time and effort into this project to let it go just yet.

Will keep you posted if I make any more progress, or hit any more road blocks!

Edit: I found a great app called ShareMouse which allows you to use the same mouse and keyboard with multiple computers but you need a separate screen for each. I'm ok with that as I quite like using two screens. Also it's not interfering with the midi ports so I think I have that part sorted. Gonna look into Reamote next..

There's no reason I can think of for interference, but as we know ... But I just tested tonight and I had NetMidi ports running while connected to the PC's screen.

Anyway, the basic protocol is called VNC. Microsoft Remote as I recall isn't entirely generic. There are many free generic versions of both the Client and Server side, I've used the Java TightVNC Viewer. But mac OS is fundamentally Unix, and it has a VNC server and client built-in. If you run a VNC server on the PC, either as a service or as a regular foreground app, you can connect from the mac using the built-in VNC client, just match the number of the port on both sides, it's usually 5900. You can even use the Finder or Safari to launch it.

https://helpdesk.owu.edu/nw/mac2mac/

http://www.davidtheexpert.com/post.php?id=5

If you have firewalls active, it usually takes a lot of trial and error, it helps to take notes, but once you get it, you got it.

=========== Reamote ==================

As to Reamote chain, yes I meant "Reaper", too many things start with Rea ...

I did get Reamote talking between Reaper 5.70 on my 12 core and Reamote Slave 5.70 on my i7 Windows 7. Best to start using a built-in Reaper VI. I was able to do it reamoting Reasynth. It's wonderfully easy to configure once you enable Reamote on both sides. When you launch Reamote Slave on the PC, it shows it's waiting, then that it's accepted a connection, then launched a plugin. And you can even browse the remotely available plugins from the master's Reaper -> Preferences -> Reamote dialog. No need to launch Reaper itself on the PC..

BUT

1) There's a considerable lag. Like 100 mS. Maybe it can be improved, but I have doubts.

2) The business about matching versions AT LEAST requires matching names and versions, but maybe it's not even possible for a Windows VST and an Mac one to match well enough. So far not a single non-Reaper Plugin I've tried has launched.

3) Reamote is a 0.92 release, it's FAR from being as polished a product as 5.70 Reaper. There's no documentation to speak of, even for the handful of settings. Even trying Reamoting from mac to mac, I wasted too many hours getting mystery errors, and when it did work, the latency was unacceptable anyway. Part of the issue IMHO is that LAN networking on the mac is not as much of a given as under Linux and Windows. Add firewalls (that are after all a necessity), and it gets harder. I'm giving up for now.

Back to working with what works much better.

Thanks for that info re. the screen sharing. Will try a VNC server for the PC even though I do quite like MouseShare - having everything on the one screen might prove more efficient.

In terms of ReaMote, what you say matches my experience with it so far. I have it all set up and running as you describe but I'm getting unacceptable latency, even playing something simple like ReaSynth. I think that routing the audio back over LAN is not prioritised in R'Mote. Also, I can only get Reaper plugins to open on the remote machine; EW Play only opens locally even though it shows up on the slave under Preferences. The FX load screen also only finds the local version. Perhaps something to do with versions/paths but research suggests Mac-PC ReaMoting might indeed be problematic.

I started a thread about this on the Reaper forum but no replies as yet:

https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=201251

As I say there and you confirm, these appear to be general problems with ReaMote. Unless I hear otherwise I too will revert to using network midi. Still can't get Audio Midi Setup and rtpMIDI to hold onto my connections though - they have to be re-connected every time I boot up both machines. Either that or similar with CopperLan, as I described before. Neither developers have responded to any of my attempts to contact them.. Still, I can live with a bit of configuring upon launch and maybe I'll find a fix for this at some point.

Later: I installed TightVNC on the PC. Yeah, seems to work fine with no interference in the ports. Some screen lag whereas there is none when using ShareMouse. I'll see how it goes but being able to see both screens at once also has its advantages, especially if I have to adjust levels etc. in Reaper as I work. (The Logic faders still don't transfer CC7 info although I have been informed of a way to get midi CC7 to transfer along with CC1, 11 etc. and that is to un-check the option in Project Settings - Midi for "Control Change 7/10 controls Volume/Pan of channel strip objects". This enables CC7 to be sent directly to plugins as opposed to channel faders. So any CC7 curves in Midi Draw will now transfer across the network. Now if only I could get those faders to send CC7 outside of Logic as well..)

Make sure you are using gigabit speed on the Ethernet. On my systems it's smooth, barely noticeable lag in mouse pointer even when I run the PC at half clock for less power consumption/fan noise. Being able to resize the window with the PC's desktop on the mac side is very handy, I expand it when I really need to see detail. I find it best to untick enable on the NetMIDI ports at both ends or the mac refuses to sleep on demand. Sometimes it refuses to shut down even. The reconnect takes a moment. But all the ports remain configured. Need to run rtpMIDI on the PC under an administrator account.

At least we're seeing same results on Reamote.

I am indeed using gigabit speed. There is no lag in the mouse action apart from a little when scrolling with the wheel; it's more apparent when opening or closing windows or programmes and when writing text etc. Not a big deal though. I have set the PC's window to the same resolution as the Mac and it fills the screen in full-screen mode. Looks great. I've also adopted the 'Logic Next Free v.1.1' theme and it's fantastic. Might explore some of the other ones.

The ports do remain configured, just not connected. However clicking 'Connect' on each port would amount to more or less the same as what you're doing by the sound of it so maybe that's as good as it gets. The trouble is I'll be working with 30-40 ports so that's a fair amount of clicking every time I start a session!

Edit: I had it confirmed over on VI-Control that it is normal to have to re-connect the ports in Audio Midi Setup upon re-boot. So I presume it can be the same for rtpMIDI, perhaps depending on the particular setup? Anyway, good to know that what I'm experiencing is normal, at least for some users.